If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Comment

Yes indeed. Many happy memories of what feels like yesterday, but is a long time ago. Particularly thinking about the line out to Yishun, remember that going in and working on the control software for the new trains that were bought to support the Woodlands Extension. I was young, beautiful and clever then!

Comment

I'm with Jan-Olav on this. Christmas cards and calendars in the shops from early October, mail order catalogues pouring through the letterboxes shouting "buy, buy. all our Christmas goodies.... buy early and beat the rush" etc. etc. it is all just one big farcical, hypocritical hassle. I'm not a Christian, but few realise nowadays that it is supposed to be a simple Christian festival celebrating the birth of their God come down to earth.
Present giving used to be costed in shillings and pence (less than 1GBP, about €70-80), simple little pressies, often handmade with affection. Now it is often more like 100GBP and picked out of a catalogue with a sigh of relief "Thank god, another one solved!"

If truth be told it was actually a pagan festival to mark the winter solstices. Since nobody know exactly when that birth happened, (if at all) the simple solution made a few hundred years later was to "hijack" an already existing festival people were familiar with.
(Now I probably managed to insult every Christian on the forum)

If truth be told it was actually a pagan festival to mark the winter solstices. Since nobody know exactly when that birth happened, (if at all) the simple solution made a few hundred years later was to "hijack" an already existing festival people were familiar with.

Quite correct. I think most Christians, particularly those who are CVF members, are well aware of the hijacking, Ombugge. Other festivals were similarly absorbed into the Christian calendar and transformed. It provided a kind of continuity, helped the evangelists to persuade their flock of a new meaning to the festival and presumably encouraged the newly converted by marking off the year with ceremonies at times they were familiar with.

Comment

Thanks heaven, the NE Monsoon is here and the haze is blown away.
Today opened fine, with the sun shining from a clear blue sky:

Heavy afternoon showers are expected as the monsoon front is passing over the area, but that is welcome after months of thick haze and little rain.
The temperature also drops as the wind start to pick up from the NE, bringing cooler air from mainland China and Siberia, although it does get warmed up from crossing the warm waters of the South China Sea. No danger of us freezing here near equator.

Comment

Don't you think that perhaps Singapore ought by now to have plans for a massive dyke-building operation with which to surround Singapore? Land reclamation is fine, but now walls are needed against future inundation!
I love that photo at #1301.

Ivy

"To thine own self be true.......
Thou canst not then be false to any man."

The construction next door is progressing slowly. Here is a picture from yesterday, which was a public holiday (Deepavali):

As you can see not all work stopped. The Chinese and Bangladeshi workers were still at work, but the big jobs stopped as the Indians, the Malaysia-Indian foremen and Singaporean bosses took the day off. (Nothing stops work entirely in Singapore)

Comment

Abt. a year and a half ago they were busy cutting down 50 year old trees. Now they are just as busy planting new trees, but I don't know if these will last as long.
Here is the construction site across the road as it looks today:

A closer look at the entrance area and Club House:

I believe the plan is to have the first Owners/Tenants moving in sometime in Q2, 2016.

By then our very own MRT station on the new Downtown Line 2 will also be open. In fact service is due to start 27. Dec.
It was opened for the public last weekend to take a look at the facilities and for free test runs: http://www.straitstimes.com/singapor...the-first-time.

“We were a nation that was not meant to be,” Shanmugaratnam said. The swamp-ridden island, expelled from Malaysia in 1965, had a polyglot population of migrants with myriad religions, cultures and belief systems.

He forgot something: numerous languages and dialects that was not mutually understood by the populous.

Now there is one common language; English.

Comment

Singapore is not normally associated with wildlife, at least not outside the Zoo, but we do have some.
The animals are being protected from traffic on the BKE by a bridge built especially for their safe crossing this busy road: http://graphics.straitstimes.com/STI...rks/index.html

The opinions expressed in this forum are those of the registrered members and shall not be connected to those of the Board Administrator or Owner. No responsibilities for what members post will be taken, though all posts will be subject to moderation for unsuitable contents. No advertisement is allowed without a explicit written confirmation from board owner. Non-approved advertisements will be deleted without further notice and member name will be banned for a period of at least one full month.